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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23436562">The Alternative</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/januaryjune/pseuds/januaryjune'>januaryjune</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Voyager</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, basic, mushy stuff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:54:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,037</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23436562</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/januaryjune/pseuds/januaryjune</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>B'Elanna's two marriage proposals.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tom Paris/B'Elanna Torres</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Alternative</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is divided between just after Blood Fever/ the end of Drive which I know is super basic, but it's the first P/T fic I ever wrote and my first fic in like...15 years, so I figured I'd start with something easy. Quarantine makes us do crazy things. Thanks to all the amazing P/T writers I lurk and admire from afar.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“It’s a ridiculous concept. It’s evil.”</p><p>B’Elanna pulled her knees up on Tom’s couch as if it was her own and looked at him like she was trying to communicate something but couldn’t quite get it right. He’d seen her with this expression before - brows knitted together, eyes desperate. Sometimes the half-Klingon engineer didn’t bother to hide the fact that her legendary temper was just a shield for her deep-rooted, terrifying vulnerability. </p><p>“What is?” Tom asked hesitantly. He handed her a tumbler full of synthehol whisky from the replicator and sat down next to her, slowly, like she might throw it in his face and run away at any moment. </p><p>“The idea that we’re supposed to pair off! Like Ktarian giraffes. That we’re supposed to sort through everyone on the ship and choose the most logical mate, or else die alone. It’s twisted.”</p><p>“Ahh,” he said, and his face immediately flushed with embarrassed guilt. He’d never expected that he and Vorik would have so much in common. </p><p><i>People are going to start pairing off</i>. He’d said it to Harry years ago, when he was trying to convince him that they could “lay claim” to the Delaney sisters before anyone else did. He’d been such an ass. He used to act like that all the time, which was easy on a ship where hardly anyone gave him the time of day except Harry and a few girls who saw him as some forbidden thrill. He’d been so cynical. He wasn’t looking to pair off himself, but he assumed everyone else was and he had to hurry up and get laid while he could. </p><p>Back then, he hadn’t really understood Harry’s devotion to his girlfriend back home. What it was like to be in love with someone. But now, looking at B’Elanna, who was so pretty it made his chest hurt and such an endearing bundle of nervous feelings, well… he might have grown as a person. Just a little bit. </p><p>He knew that she hadn’t told people what happened on Sakari, and he hadn’t said a word either. But three days later, she showed up at his door, obviously bursting with the need to talk to someone and faced with limited options. It turned out that her “pretend the whole mission never happened” rule was loose and didn’t include her persistent anger at Vorik’s initial approach. That, of all things, was what she needed to vent about.</p><p>“What else did he say?”</p><p>“That he admired my technical skills, bravery, and sense of moral duty. That he could use his Vulcan discipline to help me control my temper, and that he could withstand--”</p><p>She turned red then and coughed a little. If Tom didn’t know her better, he would have thought she was about to cry.</p><p>“That mental discipline thing really worked out for him,” Tom muttered, but he knew he was getting into the territory of things she didn’t want to talk about.</p><p>“I know it’s mean of me. Telling you about it. I just figured you were the only one I could tell.”</p><p>“B’Elanna, he assaulted you. You don’t have to constantly worry about his feelings. I know you’re angry.”</p><p>“He was a slave to his genetics. I know what that’s like,” she said softly.</p><p>She wouldn’t meet his eyes, or more likely she didn’t want to look at his jaw, even though the pon farr-induced bite mark she left there had been healed. Again, Tom felt a flush of guilt. But talking about Vorik was safer for both of them.</p><p>“You know it wasn’t just logic. He really likes you. I mean, he’s Vulcan, so it’s not like he can be normal about it. But I’m sure even without the pon farr...” </p><p>Tom didn’t finish his thought. He was remembering Neelix’s luau and how Vorik seemed to almost be competing with him for B’Elanna’s attention. He’d whisked her away at dinner, but Tom had rescued her afterwards. Vorik’s eyes had followed them, twitching with resentment that belied his repressed emotions. </p><p>“That just makes it worse,” said B’Elanna, taking a slow drink.</p><p>Tom tried not to laugh. B’Elanna didn’t like to be liked, and he understood that, because he was the same way. It was easier, pushing everyone away. It probably came from the fact that they were both used to disappointing their parents, and now they avoided the pain of letting people down whenever possible.</p><p>If she loved him, he would probably let her down.</p><p>“You’re right though,” he said. He barely sipped his own drink before he set it on the table. “You can’t just marry the person you make most sense with. It doesn’t work like that. And if it did, you’d have married Harry already.”</p><p>She snickered at him. “You’re an idiot.”</p><p>“Well, that was established long ago.”</p><p>They exchanged smiles, and a moment of silence passed between them where his quarters felt very warm and the space between them felt delicate. It was the first time they’d been alone since the turbolift the other day, and Tom was relieved that she wasn’t avoiding him as much as he’d expected. He wasn’t exactly sure if she remembered the caves as well as she remembered Vorik’s botched proposal, but he remembered all of it. </p><p>Tom Paris had kissed lots of girls. For a while, that was all he did besides drink and embarrass his father. It would be easy to say that none of them meant anything, but that wasn’t true. They all did. Every set of lips and breasts was mystifying. Every laugh, every word said to him with that light, flirtatious edge. Bajorans, Betazoids, Risians. A pair of Orion twins that would give Megan and Jenny a run for their money. But somehow kissing B’Elanna, even briefly, felt like something entirely new. Her wanting him, even if he’d been convinced it wasn’t real, was different than any other woman wanting him. If she was trying not to think about it, he understood, because he wasn’t sure that he wanted to either. It was too big, in a way. Too much. Too frightening to wonder if they were at the beginning of something, or if he was fooling himself completely to even consider the question. </p><p>Of course, B’Elanna probably wasn’t reading too much into it, and that was why she trusted him now. After all, she had a Vulcan chemical imbalance. If Neelix hadn’t fallen, she might have tried to mate with him instead. </p><p>He wondered what would happen if he told her all of it. How she burned so hot that he was scared for her. How he could feel his body respond to her, but he hated what was happening. He didn’t have anybody else to talk to either. </p><p>“B’Elanna,” he finally said, breaking the silence. “Can I ask you something?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“If we really are stuck on this ship for decades, isn’t it understandable that people think pairing off with the best option is all they can do? What’s the alternative?”</p><p><i>Just curious how someone with Klingon blood seems to live the life of a Tabran monk</i>. </p><p>She shrugged slightly, and he could tell that his question made her shy. The strange and awful events of the past few days had created a fragile closeness between them and Tom, like the idiot he was, was already pushing its limits.</p><p>“Love?” she said, and it was barely more than a whisper.</p><p>Tom smiled sadly. </p><p>“You know, it’s true what they say, Torres. You can know someone a while and keep learning new things about them all the time.”</p><p>“What’s that supposed to mean?” B’Elanna instinctively leaned back, suspicious.</p><p>“I just never realized,” Tom said quietly, “that you were such a hopeless romantic.”</p><p>---------------------------</p><p>
  <i>How come you never asked me before?</i>
</p><p>Tom hadn’t given her an answer, but if she needed one, he would. He didn’t want B’Elanna to think he was only marrying her to keep her. To prove something. The truth was, he had wanted to ask her since further back than he could even remember. Maybe since the first time they ever kissed. It just never seemed like the right moment, and he was never fully convinced she’d say yes. Then came the Hirogen, the deaths of the Maquis, the demon planet, the Borg. Crell Moset, thirty days in the brig, the ex-boyfriend from hell, the Barge of the Dead, the Tarakis memorial.</p><p>And on top of these things, the cracks and wounds that stuck in any relationship. Her temper. His selfishness. Things they said that they couldn’t take back. His heart used to melt whenever he heard her voice. Every moan and little sigh she made beneath him - or on top of him, or next to him - used to feel like a supernova in his chest. Even their fights were electric. Nobody would have been surprised to learn that their screaming matches about B’Elanna working double shifts or Tom blowing holo-emitters were mostly foreplay.</p><p>Till they weren’t. Till they stopped speaking for a week at a time so that they didn’t kill each other. It happened to everyone, he told himself. To every great love. But sometimes, just sometimes, the supernova never really goes away.</p><p>He felt it on the Delta Flyer, when they kissed again and she looked at him so gently. He loved that moment when she let down her guard and wasn’t mad anymore, and he loved that he knew it so well now. She was already his wife. His question just made it official. They were singed and dazed, and they had barely escaped death again, but they were giddy, pressed together in their twin flight suits like it was the first time. </p><p>“Tom,” she finally said, her smile fading. “If we were in the Alpha Quadrant, don’t you think … I mean... There would be so many women. And ships. And bars. Space stations. So many other places you could be.”</p><p>This might have hurt his feelings once. He’d always been afraid that B’Elanna saw no change in him, and that he was still an unreliable <i>pig</i> in her eyes. The way he’d constantly been distracted by new and shiny things and neglected her over the years didn’t help him, though. And he knew her well enough to be familiar with her insecurities. She didn’t want to be a ticked list of acceptable qualities, settled for because she was logical. But it was hard for her to believe that she could be loved for who she was.</p><p>“Do you remember the day we met?” he asked her, brushing the wild hair out of her eyes.</p><p>“Oh yes,” she said, and she smirked. </p><p>“I walked onto the bridge of the <i>Valjean</i> and you were underneath the helm. I made that stupid joke about how you must be my bonus.”</p><p>“God, you were the worst.”</p><p>“I really was,” Tom laughed. “You sat up and looked at me, and you had black smudges all over your face and a hyperspanner in one hand. I thought you were going to shove it down my throat. The second I looked in your eyes, I felt so embarrassed, I -- I know I flirted with all the women, but the feeling I had when I met you was so big. So much. I didn’t understand it then.”</p><p>“You probably liked that I hated you,” B’Elanna said, but he could tell she was deflecting.</p><p>“Maybe. But I’d spend seventy years alone before I married someone I felt any less strongly about than I feel about you.”</p><p>“At least it’s not going to be that long anymore,” she muttered, but her face was red. His capacity for mushy stuff was unlimited, apparently.</p><p>He pulled her closer on his lap, their bodies fitting together. A broken comm system was their idea of heaven. Plenty of time to get tractored in before they had to tell anyone on <i>Voyager</i> the story of how the shuttle got broken and Tom and B’Elanna got fixed. Hopefully Harry was okay. </p><p>“So,” she said, and a slow smile spread across her face as she nudged her nose against his. “You really do want to pair off with me, Flyboy?”</p><p>Tom laughed and pressed his forehead to hers. “I always have.”</p>
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